Discarded Egos, Leaky Teeth, Chattering Bowels and a Seasoning of Critical Splanchnology

Fite-Wassilak reflects on the art installation, Indigestibles, by Dafna Maimon which was shown at last year's Helsinki Biennial. Maimon's recent works can be seen as a trilogy of sorts on the process of ingestion: from diseased cooking, in her performance Wary Mary (2019), to chewing and mastication in her video and installation Leaky Teeth (2021) and the noisy journey into the intestines of Indigestibles. The installation of Leaky Teeth included several drawings, densely textured swirls of ochres, browns and dark reds, from which a tooth, a hand or something resembling an intestine emerges. Sections of the tooth-cave seen in the video were arranged on the gallery's walls and floors, looking more like enlarged, crinkled bits of skin pocked with bruises and patchy growths. As with the giant intestine-portal of Indigestibles, Maimon places us inside the body and asks us to have a good, mucky feel around.